Were Malahide passengers informed of this? Did the IE PR on Friday not say DART services were not affected?

It did say that, only for Barry Kenny to admit on live radio that they had to run Malahide DART's to Howth Junc only, I have it recorded

I was in Pearse Station last Friday and the Platform Information Screens (PIS) displaying in order last DARTs from Pearse followed by DARTs delayed by 10 minutes due to signal problems near sandymount followed by news that there would be no northern trains over the weekend, talk about priority!!!

There was no mention of what was happening that night on the Northern line despite the 22.22 being cancelled and there was no mention of malahide DARTs despite there being no Malahide DARTs.

No wonder people hadn't a clue what was going on.

Single line section was from the Quarry Malahide to Ballbriggan, about 13 miles. The freight train derailed at a set of points which resulted in the single line working being over several miles more than you would expect

All Malahide DART services where terminated at Howth Junction as a result. Had IE suspended all southbound services normal service could have been provided northbound on Friday evening with slight delays

Correction, Single line working over down road from Malahide Quarrry to Balbriggan

Regards,
Dave.

There seem to have been a number of trains running late this morning, but the delays seem to have been happening at the Drogheda/Dundalk end rather than the 25mph section where the incident occurred. I was on the 7:27 which left Drogheda at 7:33 (in fairness, if it had been on time I'd have been on the 7:41). It slowed down south of Skerries, then sped off to Rush and Lusk. Arrived in Connolly about 8:35, and the driver apologised for the late running.

That seems totally daft. The problem was nowhere near Malahide. Was there any reason why DARTs couldn't run between HJ and Malahide?

Incidently, I was thinking earlier that since most of the railcars were trapped on the wrong side of Skerries, the sensible thing to would have been to use the available railcars to run a shuttle service between Rush & Lusk and Malahide, and let passengers change to the DART for the trip into town.

The signalling arrangements at Malahide are such that it is impossible for a train arriving on the wrong track from Donabate to access the normal southbound platform and therefore must cross back at the quarry

Pilot working is always between two specified sets of points making it impossible for a DART to enter Malahide without the pilot man as the north to south bound crossover is beyond the trailing one needed to cross the Drogheda line trains back over

IE well knew this in advance, but could have avoided the whole issue if they had not run any southbound trains in the rush hour

A most unfortunate incident. I had a sneaky feeling that when I heard about it on Thursday night, there might be problems for morning rush hour on Friday.

For different reasons, this is the second time in a few months that the northside of Dublin has been reduced to a mess. The first time was of course, the Dublin Bus strike at Harristown. Both incidents highlighted the problems when something goes wrong. Buses can't cope and the roads end up with miles of tailbacks. It's situations like this that yet again bring us back to an overall transport authority for Dublin. It is now imperative that a DTA be given powers in the first instance to plan infrastructure and secondly, to implement emergency plans, when something goes wrong. Coordination is the word that leaps to mind.

The breakdown in communication at 11pm on Thursday night is rediculous. The breakdown on Friday morning is unforgiveable. Bus Eireann, should have accepted rail tickets. Extra buses should have been arranged. The port tunnel should have been opened to all traffic free of charge. The Gardai should have been notified and put a "mini operation freeflow" in place.

Just look at the M50. When an accident occurs during rush hour, large parts of the city grind to a halt. This type of thing cannot be allowed to continue. We are struggling with infrastructure. We are struggling with services. Who the f**k is in charge? I'll tell you. Absolutely nobody! The whole thing is a mess and despite investment, the lack of proper "transport management" for the greater Dublin region will consign us to a hell that we cannot even begin to imagine. Every week it gets worse in some capacity.

Lads and lassies, I never claim to have all the answers, but until such time that our Government actually wake up and realise that commuters need a management body in place to coordinate absolutely everything, we will continue to p*ss into the wind of the public transport and congested road, abyss, that is the reality of Dublin.

The DTA. Nearly 30 years on the proposal list and still not a reality. Broken axles, limited services, wrong road running on the railway etc etc means nothing because there is no plan in place. There is nobody in charge. Its a quagmire of "indie" operators under state control, while nobody actually sits in the control room.

Thats the sad truth, can you imagine how we would cope in one day if say a major accident blocked the M50 and the Dart went off at the same time?

I'll bet a contingency plan doesn't exist because there is no plan in the first place.

Why did DB accept tickets and Bus Eireann not ? Is there some bunfight going on ?

The DTA should be independent of RPA, IE and all the operators. Yet the RPA will morph into it. Therefore no-one will trust it since all it wants to do is build trams and metros.

Irish Rail have a long standing agreement with Dublin Bus, goes back to the fact Dublin commuter and bus where more or less managed by the same person back in the old days of CIE

Bus Eireann don't have such an arrangement, Irish Rail appeared to get one in place but since Bus Eireann rely heavily on hired in contractors not everyone was in the loop and the don't seem to have a radio system like Dublin Bus to instruct drivers of the situation

Apparently DB and IR have a standing arrangement but BE and IR do not so it had to be arranged that morning. It used to be done on an ad-hoc basis but now they have to agree on a sum of money to be paid to BE/DB in return for accepting IR tickets.

Possibilities such as a terrorist attack, a catostrophic power failure or even a sevre solar flare like the one that hit Canada in the 80's. If any dissaster were to happen the city would quite litterally grind to a halt.


Damn, if only the allies or the germans invaded us in the emergency, maybe things would be a bit more efficient, hopefully a german influence could have fixed this country:rolleyes:

This morning due to a glitch in the computer systems all traffic through the Port Tunnel was toll free.

Last Friday with a major glitch in a busy rail line along the same corridor, the Port Tunnel lay mostly idle.

That waste of tax payers money will only be free for non bus/hgv when there is absolutely no way of collecting cash. Funniliy enough, it wasnt publicised very much and by all accounts that I heard, was empty.

Lets look at the 2 most recent big transport investments in Dublin. Luas and the Port Tunnel.

Luas - behind schedule and not connected. Don't forget that much time and money was wasted debating the whole metro upgrade and eventually building the green line to metro spec. But hang on, we have now decided that we won't really be upgrading it to metro after all!!

Port Tunnel - Hmmm... In my opinion, a vast amount of money on a road project, in a car dependent city, that penalises cars very heavily,for using it. Add to that the HGV debacle on the M50 and need I say more?

But my initial point about a contingency plan is relevent. Mark H has developed it further by suggesting the calamity that would ensue if both the M50 and DART network shut down. It doesn't bare thinking about from our perspective, but wouldn't it be nice if there was actually someone somewhere doing just that?

I heard AA roadwatch announce on the radio that the tunnel was free. It appears that the VMS displays on the M1 and M50 were saying otherwise.

Come August, the Westlink toll will be the same as the tunnel toll most of the time....

Refunds
 

Just wondering if anyone had received their refunds?
I applied a few days later for both the inward and outward journeys, hand delivered the applications to Connolly, but no word to date.
They would normally have processed them by now.
Maybe a lot of the Drogheda and Dundalk train users had included their bus tickets for refunds, so that may have complicated things.
However, still waiting over a month.....:(